The Nebraska senator also took aim at the Democratic voting bills in question and made the case for reforming the Electoral Count Act.
The Nebraska senator also took aim at the Democratic voting bills in question and made the case for reforming the Electoral Count Act.
N ebraska GOP senator Ben Sasse went to the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon to defend the filibuster and blast President Biden’s speech earlier this week that likened the opponents of Democratic voting legislation to George Wallace and Bull Connor.
“The president of the United States called half the country a bunch of racist bigots,” Sasse said. “He doesn’t believe that. This was a senile comment of a man who read whatever was loaded into his teleprompter.”
“If Joe Biden really believes that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are bigots,” Sasse asked, “why has he not called for them to be kicked out of his party?” Both Sasse and Sinema spoke up this week — as they have consistently done for years — in defense of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for legislation, a rule that most Senate Democrats and President Biden now want to abolish.
The Nebraska senator then took aim at the Democratic voting bills in question and made the case for reforming the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law governing how Congress handles disputes regarding the counting of Electoral College votes.
“It makes no sense to federalize our elections right now,” Sasse said. “Last year, we had a president who disgraced his office by trying to steal an election. What stopped that? Our decentralized state-based systems of elections are what stopped last year’s attempt to steal an election.”
“It makes absolutely no sense to try to go into nuclear partisanship now when we could be talking about actually preventing another January 6th by doing the hard and actual bipartisan work — not the grandstanding for Twitter — to reform the Electoral Count Act, which is 130 years old and obviously doesn’t work that well.”
The second half of Sasse’s speech focused on the importance of preserving the 60-vote threshold for most legislation.
“Americans don’t want one-party rule — by the Democrats or by the Republicans. Both of these parties are really crappy,” he said. “Getting rid of the filibuster means you don’t have to try to talk to people on the other side of the aisle and get to a 60-vote threshold for legislation or a 67-vote threshold for rules changes. It means that one of these two terrible parties will get to do a lot more stuff a lot faster that will inevitably be incredibly unpopular with the American people.”
“American people do not want revolution; they do not want fundamental change. What they want is competence. What they want is more honesty,” Sasse continued.
Sasse spoke minutes after Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema delivered a speech on the Senate floor in defense of the filibuster. Sasse praised Sinema’s “extraordinary stand of courage” and criticized her Democratic colleagues who are unwilling to publicly admit that they regret previous votes to weaken the filibuster. According to Sasse, “between 15 and 18” Senate Democrats “privately told me they regret following Harry Reid” to abolish the filibuster for most judicial and executive-branch nominees in 2013.
“If you get rid of the filibuster,” Sasse warned, “you will turn the Senate into the House, and you will ensure that this body, too, ends up consumed by demagogues, conspiracists, and clowns.”